Met Office Cardington: Land surface model (LSM) meteorological driving data, 2005-2024

The Met Office Observation-based research Boundary Layer Facility, at the semi-rural field site (18 Ha) of Cardington (52° 06′ N, 00° 25′ W, 29 m ± 1 m amsl) in central-southern England between 2004 and 2024, compiled a forcing meteorological dataset for the Cardington site to drive the JULES standalone land surface model (LSM) that covers the whole year 2005-2024 data record, albeit only based on 30 min temporal resolution. JULES is the UK community LSM that is used in the Met Office Unified Model (MetUM) from short-range weather forecasts through to climate predictions, from global coverage down to a single point. JULES requires the following seven atmospheric input variables at every time step for it to able to run using prescribed meteorology from field observations: downwelling shortwave irradiance, downwelling longwave irradiance, rainfall, air temperature, mean horizontal wind, surface barometric pressure, and specific humidity.

The drive dataset is a NetCDF file for each of the four drive heights (2, 10, 25 and 50 m), such that temperature, wind and humidity drive variables are taken from the different mast heights, with the pressure, radiation and rainfall remaining unchanged as they were only available from fixed levels (i.e. pressure at 1.2 m, downwelling radiation at 4 m, upwelling radiation at 2 m, and rainfall at the surface).

The corresponding 4 files have the following temporal ranges:

- 2 m drive height: 20120101-0000 to 20241231-2330
- 10 m drive height: 20050101-0000 to 20241231-2330
- 25 m drive height: 20050101-0000 to 20241231-2330
- 50 m drive height: 20050101-0000 to 20241231-2330

Times are in UTC.

The 2 m level is limited to the whole years 2012–2024. Although the netCDF drive dataset has been configured to run with JULES, it should be straightforward to apply the data within it to other LSMs that can be run offline and forced by prescribed meteorology for a single point.

A full list of NetCDF variables can be found in “A continuous hydrometeorological record (2004–2024) at the Met Office surface site of Cardington, UK.” Osborne et al. (2025). This paper should be referenced in any research/publications pertaining to this dataset.

To ensure optimal traceability and transparency of data, comprehensive metadata is included.